Alibaba's Singles' Day is the biggest online shopping event of the year. (Photo : Getty Images)
Singles' Day, China's online shopping holiday, prompted a restaurant in Chongqing to stop the release of its personnel's wages until the end of the year. The restaurant owner claimed that this will stop the workers from spending all their earnings on online shopping.
The upcoming Singles' Day in China is on Nov. 11 and is the biggest shopping holiday in China. The restaurant is being criticized with critics saying that the move will affect productivity.
Mixed reactions came from the restaurant employees. One of the staff members said that management was breaking labor laws and infringing personal rights.
Another employee said, "Online shopping may be a little crazy but as an adult, it won't affect my work or life."
However, the manager justified the policy. He himself spent nearly 20,000 yuan or $2,960 on Singles' Day last year.
Alibaba Singles' Day revenue has grown over the years that profits have exceeded Black Friday in the U.S. Last year's profits rose to $14.3 billion.
Analysts think that the trend set by Alibaba's online shopping day will be huge in China but not necessarily in other parts of the world.
"There's a tremendous challenge to take it global," says Scott Likens, who heads PwC's analytics and emerging technologies business in Hong Kong. "The model that works in China does not work outside China, or at least not as well."
This is disputed by the company's founder, Jack Ma. He thinks that by 2024, one in four people will start to use Alibaba.
"We will become the future of new retail," says Daniel Zhang, Alibaba chief executive. "Product design and manufacturing will move in the direction of truly being driven by big data."
